be encompassed in laws surrounding the commercial sexual
exploitation and abuse of minors and child prostitution.152 Ideally,
state law would categorize the crime of buying sex with a minor as a
form of domestic minor sex trafficking.153

Most individuals are uninformed as to the connections
between the commercial sex industry and the sex trafficking of
children.154 There is a failure to acknowledge that the buyer’s
creation of demand for commercial sex furthers the profitability of
the domestic minor sex trafficking operation.155 Buyers may often be
“situational,” meaning that they are unaware or do not care about the
age of the individual being prostituted, and are often persons within
communities who are highly regarded both personally and
professionally, such as doctors, lawyers, politicians, brothers, and
sons.156 As a result of an inability to believe these individuals are
capable of exploiting our children, society is hesitant to educate and
inform these situational buyers about the realities of the commercial
sex industry.157 It is important, however, to get past the barrier of
denial in order to help eliminate domestic minor sex trafficking.

In New York, “John Schools” have been implemented as part
of local policy to deter buyers of sex by placing “the onus for solving
the problem on the buyers, rather than on victims alone.”158 In

156 See SMITH ET AL., supra note 12, at 17; see also Jacqueline Zimowski, Rachel
Lloyd Gives Forbes the Truth on Pimps, Johns, and Trafficking American Kids, NO
HUM. TRAFFICKING (Jan. 24, 2012),
http://nohumantrafficking.org/rachel-lloyd-gives-you-the-truth-on-pimps-johns-and-trafficking-american-kids/ (quoting
Rachel Lloyd’s statement that we have to see “johns as a part of the problem.
People get that pimps are violent, but the idea that these regular men are villains . .
. . These are fathers and brothers and husbands, we know them, we work with
them, we go home to them, and yet they’re going out and buying girls and women
for sex.”).